Salary

Average Salary: $46,840

Expected Lifetime Earnings: $1,955,000

It all depends on where you work. State to state, mom and pop shop to mega funeral home conglomerate… how seasoned you are, and your drive. All of these factors play into the pay. For instance, an average Texas Funeral Director’s salary is about $62,700 a year. In New York, you’re looking at $72,300. You may even get lucky and trade your cubicle for a coroner’s office, the door of which reads: “Managing Funeral Director” and watch as your paycheck climbs to six figures.

The business generates nice steady profits over time and, for most funeral directors and like all small business people, the lion’s share of the profits in the end come from having owned the land and building on which your practice sits. So how do you account for that nut on an annual basis? You don’t. From a business operations perspective, a funeral parlor is a low capital business to start – maybe $30,000 in caskets and other supplies – and then you wait… for death.

The business should start generating some profits early as the “capital” needed to be successful is intellectual capital more than anything else. If your community trusts you, it is likely you can bring them on board. Or boards, depending on which kind of casket they choose. You should likely allocate a few grand going toward your psychiatric bills. If some day you can maybe patent a zip-loc process of embalming so it is just not so messy, that would be nice.